INQUIRER.net unveils blog network

Finally, INQUIRER.net unveils its blog network. Joey Alarilla, our resident game editor/blogger, admits he is the guinea pig in this project ;-)

Again you might ask, why do we blog? For INQUIRER.net, it is about extending the conversation with our readers. We get a lot of feedback from readers everyday. We hope to engage readers in a more, well for lack of term, interactive conversation. I've also been blogging for close to 3 years now. It started when my youngest daughter was born. Somehow, my blog evolved from being an online diary of my daughter into something more personal. It currently features my musings on blogging, technology, journalism, and recently, politics (since I cover the elections).

The INQUIRER.net blogs network aims to be not just any blog network. We hope to use it to make news your news too. And as Joey says, we also hope to take advantage of today's technology and use it to keep the conversation going. Happy birthday INQUIRER.net blogs!!!

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By the way, INQUIRER.net is currently co-convenor of Media Nation, a gathering of different news organizations in the Philippines.

Week 7: On-the-go journalism and web 2.0

When bombs went off in Mumbai, the first thing I did was go to Flickr (click photo to see more) and YouTube to check photos and videos taken by people who might have witnessed it. These popular social networking websites now allow people to capture history. In today’s wired world, the unfolding of events can be documented almost instantaneously with technology. But can we describe this practice journalism?

Armed with a phone camera, I have been taking snapshots of events/people while on field since last year. But due to frustrating speeds of sending photos via today’s local mobile network, I still download these photos onto a PC before sending it to my editors. Perhaps this is the first step towards mobile journalism. (Also listen to the short podcast I did).

Mobile journalism involves Internet technology and telecommunications. Both are modern tools for delivering news on-the-fly. When I started working for an online publication six years ago, the standing order was to: “write for today and not tomorrow.” Today, that has changed to: “break the story now and add photos, videos and audio quickly.” Sounds like a lot of work? Yes it does. But since the Internet is multimedia, people expect more from journalists (who do not necessarily work for the online medium) to also produce photos, videos and audio. Mainstream media is now looking at hiring younger and more tech-savvy journalists to cover news because they understand readers' behavior today.

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a blogger observed how fellow bloggers attending this big event have become source of “scoops” and “inside information.” Not every journalist could cover this event alone. But they have provided "just in time" information for mainstream media. He called it “instant journalism.” I simply call them “leads.”

Week 6: CJ is still journalism gone hi-tech.

I recently had a brief online exchange with a colleague on how bloggers and journalist would soon become "one." He disagreed, stressing bloggers and journalists have clashing values. Journalists follow established standards, while bloggers don’t. But in countries where media is censored, blogs have only been the means to do “citizen” journalism.

Citizen journalism is an idea that can be broken down further to understand what it is. Journalism is a "profession," for some a vocation. This title has often been given to people who work for media organizations. Their role is to deliver news that hopes to help citizens make better and more informed decisions.But the act of doing journalism does not necessarily mean one has to be employed in a newspaper.

With the Internet and blogs, regular people are now empowered to do journalism. That is if they follow the ethical "standards" of thoroughness, accuracy, fairness, transparency and independence.

Dan Gillmor says it best: “Technology has given us a communications toolkit that allows anyone to become a journalist at little cost and in theory with global reach. Nothing like this has ever been remotely possible before.”

But to quote Spiderman: “With power comes great responsibility.”

I believe citizen journalism is journalism the way it was, or the way it should be. Citizens now have been given back the power not only to consume but also “pro-duce” news, as Gillmor puts it.

What blogs have done to journalism is make citizens part of the news process. Bloggers won't replace journalists. But both will be working together in the future to deliver a better version of the news. Call this the future of journalism. But I would simply call it journalism with stress on the citizens.

Week 5: Embracing “citizen” journalism

I recall an interview with one of Philippines’ top blogger Abe Olandres. The premise of that interview was this: Should bloggers follow ethical guidelines in journalism?

Abe is a well-read professional blogger writing about technology. He prefers to be called a "meta-journalist," a term that describes his tech punditry. But after reading Mark Glaser's article , I say Abe is a journalist.

No matter how he puts it, Abe is doing journalism. He writes based on facts -- but insists that some are based on "speculations" or better, an informed guess based on industry sources.

As Max Kalehoff, an executive at Nielsen BuzzMetrics, wrote on Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMachine blog :

Why not just call journalism “journalism” — a word the citizens, amateurs, networks, distributors and professionals can understand? Journalism can be “practiced” in all sorts of ways, and by virtually anyone. You don’t even have to be a citizen or a professional; you could be a foreigner, or even an alien from outer space. But I do agree with your overall beat: journalism is not some exclusive club; it’s something that takes many forms, including all the ones you describe.

Citizen journalism has emerged because of the Internet and blogs. Similar to Dan Gillmor's story on Joe Nacchio, Abe and other local bloggers like J. Angelo Racoma have become sources of my stories. From time to time, they pick up juicy information, which I end up writing as a full-blown news report.

As Gillmor pointed out, citizens like Abe and Racoma are no longer consumers of news. They make the news. They are today's citizen journalists. Gillmor adds:

[T]echnology has given us a communications toolkit that allows anyone to become a journalist at little cost and, in theory, with global reach. Nothing like this has ever been remotely possible before.

Malaysia warns of crackdown on news blogs

I feel sad whenever I read this kind of stories. Cracking down on blogs will only push more Malaysian bloggers to blog.

As this story reports:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysian officials have threatened a crackdown on divisive postings on news blogs, in what an international media watchdog calls a move to expand controls on the traditional media to the Internet.

All Malaysian news blogs may have to be registered with the Ministry of Information, local media reported earlier in the week, citing Deputy Science and Technology Minister Kong Cho Ha as saying the laws were necessary to dissuade bloggers from promoting disorder in Malaysia's multiethnic society.

Blogs in countries like Malaysia are becoming the last bastion of freedom of speech. In this age of convergence (which I would like to define as the death of traditional media as we know it), blogs have provided an enviroment for people like Jeff Oii.

Also this week, reports indicated that Malaysia was mulling laws on blogging. Excerpt:

KUALA LUMPUR--Malaysia may introduce tough Internet laws to control bloggers and prevent them from spreading "disharmony, chaos, seditious material and lies" on their websites, a report said Sunday.

Deputy Science and Technology Minister Kong Cho Ha said moves such as registering bloggers would be difficult, but accused some writers of posting controversial articles to attract readers.

Leo Magno, my editor, has written a special report (you can also read the other parts here, here) on how blogs and podcasting has changed the face of journalism. In the third part of this report, he states:

[B]bloggers and podcasters in particular -- are getting influential, if we are to define influence as being noticed and listened to by government, mainstream media and the public. We have also discussed the pitfalls of referring to this trend as a new form of journalism. We have also heard from mainstream media and from new media publishers who, they said, do not even consider themselves journalists.

Theoretically then, bloggers and podcasters should not be harassed or censored if they are seen merely as flies that refuse to go away. But why do charges of sedition and active censorship still occur? Why are blogs and podcasts being monitored by government? Why is there a seeming insecurity on the part of traditional media? Why should new media grassroots journalism be considered a threat?

Blogs and podcasts are disruptive technologies. They arrive at the party, offer something new, start playing a new song and dance to a new beat, they tear the piñata down and before you know it the tables have been overturned and the party will never be the same again. That party is traditional media -- television, radio and print. Any new addition to a set with the potential to disrupt established norms would naturally be seen as a threat. Traditional media is pushed out of its comfort zone of having the final say on matters of news and opinion. Traditional media may even feel that with grassroots journalism they may become disenfranchised.

Perhaps blogs, podcasts and new media in general are seen as threats because of changing information assimilation behaviors of the audience.

WEEK 3: The best of both worlds

The online medium provides the "best of both worlds" of broadcasting and print. With faster computers and Internet connection, it is now possible to deliver text, videos, and audio through an online media. Users can choose what they want. They may even opt to have news pushed to them via mobile phones --which extends the online medium further. The online media is at the "cutting edge" of journalism. While it won't replace journalism as we know it, it changes paradigms, mindsets, and business models. Online medium can deliver news quickly and around the clock. It provides an endless web of information through links and recently, blogs. Newspapers are now putting up video content, complimented with audio, which can be a short news clip or a streaming Internet radio program. Blogs have also provided another way to engage readers .

The biggest weakness of the online medium is accessibility and cost. Not all people have Internet access and computers. But mobile phones are becoming an alternative. Nonetheless, the online medium opens up opportunities for the news "business." It creates additional revenues (through advertising and syndication) for newspapers, television, and radio. With the online medium, they can have a bigger and younger audience born in a multimedia world. Traditional media that refuse to change remain the biggest threat to online media.

A paper titled, "Newspaper websites deliver local consumers" by the Newspaper Association of America, states a general trend in the US, which is now happening in countries like the Philippines:

The number of Web users visiting newspaper Web sites continues to grow—from 40 percent of everyone online in 2002, to 48 percent in 2004 and 51 percent in 2006.